What Do You Think Is History's Most Lucrative Song?

Death & Taxes did some research to find out what the most lucrative song in all history is, and it's an interesting question. What do you think it would be? At first blush, you might assume it'd be something by the Beatles or Elvis, but then you'd remember that they were before the age of MTV, in which songs could be franchised into viable one-hit careers. So that might get you thinking of Madonna, Britney Spears or 'N Sync. But then, with some sadness, you might think Justin Bieber might have the most lucrative song in history. Don't worry. He doesn't.

Actually, the winner is an unlikely one: Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville." It's such a hit that, in 2006, Buffett founded Margaritaville Enterprises, LLC, which has a thriving retail business, 30 resorts around the world and a line of restaurants (named after another Buffett hit, "Cheeseburger in Paradise.") All told, Businessweek estimates that the song makes several hundreds of millions of dollars every year ...